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1984.09_Adam's House in Paradise (012.1984), Architect's Proposal, 1 of 2

by: Bill Lane, Peter Jensen, Anderson Wheelwright Assoc., Alastair Standing and Marek Walczak, Karen Bausman and Leslie Gill, BA-BA ARC, Demetrius Manouselis, Dan Coma, Uttam Jain, Morphosis, Mary Pepchinski, Eric Owen Moss Architect, Alison Smithson, David DeValeria, Shin Takamatsu, Bart Prince, Lebbeus Woods, Zvi Hecker

Collection: exhibitions; sfaaarchive; americana

Digitizing sponsor: Storefront for Art and Architecture, National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), and Mr. Robert M. Rubin

Contributor: Storefront for Art and Architecture

Language: English

Bill Lane and Peter Jensen (booklet)

Anderson Wheelwright Assoc.: Our project is a description of a process that consists of reclamation, revitalization, and renewal.

Alastair Standing and Marek Walczak: We begin with the synthesis of two ideas: one is expressed by a Cartesian grid (Manhattan) and the other, by curves expanding out of Adam Purple’s (Yin Yang) garden.

Karen Bausman and Leslie Gill: Our proposed project was generated by the two forces acting on this site: the Manhattan city grid and the ideals expressed in the configurations of Adam Purple’s “Garden of Eden”

BA-BA ARC “East of Eden”: So he drove out the man: and he placed at the east of the garden of E’den cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Demetrius Manouselis

Dan Coma

Uttam Jain: “The Purple Phoenix”: In a twilight zone of urban decay and abandonment this project attempts to encourage and sustain a unique urban creation.

Morphosis: The Garden of Eden and Adam Purple’ struggles with the Housing Authority can be viewed as a metaphor for the relationship between man and his environment...

Mary Pepchinski: We can save Adam’s garden, but what will become of all the other gardens...

Eric Owen Moss Architect “Stonehenge Recoded/Knossos Unloaded/Manhattan Outmoded”

Alison Smithson, “Concentricity Update”: … If any housing is to come in the Adam’s spirit of achievement on contiguous unoccupied land, the garden has to first upraise its edge...

David DeValeria: This project takes into account the special nature of Adam Purple’s “Garden of Eden” as well as its unusual siting on the outside edge of one of two city blocks...

Shin Takamatsu “The Wood of Eden”: The planning is only based on the following romantic concepts...

Bart Prince: The Scheme provides a continuation of the garden which has already been begun by allowing it to expand between and around the apartment buildings...

Lebbeus Woods: The Cultivation of gardens within dense urban settlements helps to establish a healthy community of planetary life forms and processes...

Zvi Hecker “Adam's Stairs to Paradise”: Seven interconnected ten-storey helical “stairs” enclose the site from north, west and south, leaving the Garden of Eden in the center of the project...

Notes

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 11, 1983 %u2013 TUESDAY FEBRUARY 22, 1983

Built on an abandoned property over the course of ten years, Adam Purple%u2019s Garden of Eden was an elaborately designed oasis amidst the rubble of the neglected Lower East Side in New York City. In 1984, this public garden was facing demolition as a result of the proposed construction of a low-income housing project by the New York City Housing Authority. Storefront invited 30 architects%u2014including Lebbeus Woods, Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio, Zvi Hecker, Neil Denari, Eric Owen Moss and others%u2014to design two city blocks of public housing around Purple%u2019s Garden of Eden. The exhibition presented these alternative designs to integrate the garden within the housing project and envisioned future environments that would improve basic urban shelter through accompaniment with nature. The proposals were forwarded to the Housing Authority in an attempt to preserve Purple%u2019s Garden of Eden; the effort ultimately proved unsuccessful, and Purple%u2019s garden was destroyed.